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Postdoctoral Researcher on Graphene and 2D materials for Magnetic Memories

Imec is the world-leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies. The combination of our widely acclaimed leadership in microchip technology and profound software and ICT expertise is what makes us unique. By leveraging our world-class infrastructure and local and global ecosystem of partners across a multitude of industries, we create groundbreaking innovation in application domains such as healthcare, smart cities and mobility, logistics and manufacturing, and energy.
As a trusted partner for companies, start-ups and universities we bring together close to 3,500 brilliant minds from over 70 nationalities. Imec is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium and also has distributed R&D groups at a number of Flemish universities, in the Netherlands, Taiwan, USA, China, and offices in India and Japan. All of these particular traits make imec to be a top-class employer. To strengthen this position as a leading player in our field, we are looking for those passionate talents that make the difference!

Job Description:

Spintronics-based magnetic memories (MRAM) are foreseen to be amongst the most credible non-volatile memories candidates that are low power, high endurance and fast enough to compete with cache CMOS elements such as SRAM and eDRAM. Spin transfer torque (STT) is the mature mechanism used to write magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) which are at the core of MRAM bit cells, however there is a need for exploring new concepts overcoming STT-MRAM limitations. Meanwhile, strong effort has been put on 2D materials development for spin propagation and manipulation. Graphene has shown the possibility to propagate spins over very long distances, while transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDC), such as WTe2 and MoS2, have shown the possibility to manipulate spin currents through strong spin-orbit effects. That opens the path to novel 2D-spintronic devices, leading to many advanced and innovative concepts. Imec has demonstrated in past years the capacity to produce state of the art STT-MRAM, and Imec is currently developing methods for large scale growth and transfer of 2D materials. Therefore, Imec offers a unique possibility to bridge these two worlds for memory related activities, in a FAB environment.
The objective of the postdoc position will be to evaluate the potential of graphene to improve MTJ properties (Tunnel Magneto-Resistance, retention, switching current densities) at LAB scale, and to enable innovative solution for genuine FAB processing of 2D-MTJs. The second aspect of the topic will be to explore large spin-orbit effects of TMDC to improve spin-orbit torques (SOT) and voltage torque (VT) based MRAM.

Requirements:

You have a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, Material science, device physics or similar. You have extensive experience in graphene growth, transfer and characterization, in magnetic device fabrication and characterization, as well as broad competencies in the physics of spintronics and 2D materials. Fluent English communication skills are required.

This postdoctoral position is funded by imec through KU Leuven. Because of the specific financing statute which targets international mobility for postdocs, only candidates who did not stay or work/study in Belgium for more than 24 months in the past 3 years can be considered for the position (short stays such as holiday, participation in conferences, etc. are not taken into account).